QBE is committed to creating a more inclusive workplace for all. With more than 13,000 people working across 27 countries, we recognise the importance of learning from our successes across the globe when building an accessible environment and aim to ensure that level of accessibility can be delivered for all.
2023 was an important year for QBE, as this marked the establishment of our partnership with GAIN (Group for Autism, Investment, Insurance, and Neurodiversity) in the UK. QBE has signed up as an Industry Transformer for the next 3 years, not only to drive more awareness of neuroinclusion internally to our organisation, but throughout the insurance sector.
To launch our partnership QBE conducted an audit through GAIN, which highlighted several opportunities to shape a more accessible workplace environment. Some key focus areas included the fluency of our People Leaders when supporting their neurodiverse team members, optimising our accessible working environments, streamlining our reasonable adjustment request process, and more clarity around the purpose and goals of our employee network, EO Workability, that focuses on neurodiversity and disability.
One year on and we are proud of the progress we have made off the back of this audit. Some key milestones to note include:
Restructure of our employee network – Establishing official roles and responsibilities within the network, as well as dedicated workstreams, and clear goals for 2024.
Launch of our assistive software ticket system – Our IT Service Desk now includes a dedicated ticket system focused on providing assistive software in a consistent and urgent manner.
Distribution of our Inclusive Hiring Principles – Holding our Hiring Managers and Talent Acquisition teams to account to ensure they are creating a more accessible recruitment process.
Prioritising accessibility within our new office – Seizing the opportunity of a recent office move to ensure workspaces were optimised for accessibility, prioritising dedicated quiet spaces and adaptable meeting rooms, for example.
Building out accessibility-focused resources – To further support our managers with fluency surrounding neurodiversity, we have created a People Leader Toolkit and Neurodiversity Workplace Guide to support when having conversations with colleagues.
Established our Workability Coffee Mornings – regular virtual catch ups where colleagues from all over the organisation can learn more about neurodiversity, ask questions, and meet people from across the business who may be having similar experiences.
By ensuring neuroinclusion has remained part of the conversation throughout the past year and making a shift from commitment to tangible actions, we have observed an increase in the sense of belonging for our colleagues who identify as neurodiverse or with a disability, resulting in us closing our belonging gap of 5ppt or less (measured through our employee surveys).
In addition, our progress within the UK has been recognised and commended, with our global divisions being inspired to drive more focus on accessibility at a global level also.
Progress hasn’t been without its challenges, and there have been some learning experiences. Taking the conversation of neurodiversity wider than the UK has proved difficult, since the term is not as widely used throughout other countries. Awareness that different countries are at different stages is imperative to ensure that we make our people feel comfortable to join the conversation. With support from our Global teams this has supported us in taking a globally consistent approach.
We recognise there is still plenty of work to be done, with commitments to continue to streamline other adjustment request processes across the business, separating our disability and neurodiversity within our employee surveys, and delivering an inclusion fluency workshops series later this year to name a few.
By Harry Benham, Inclusion Manager at QBE
Note, you can learn more about careers at QBE by visiting the Careers section of their website, here.
To learn more about the benchmarks that GAIN provides our member companies, check out this video.
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